Underground
by Gemini Star01
Summary: After the death of his family, Donatello is left as the only caretaker of a hidden sanctuary for mutants and outcasts. But when a stranger from the Topside wanders into his home, all of his memories and everything he knew to be true will be challenged...
1. Ashes to Ashes

Hm. I'm on a TMNT kick lately. The movie was just too geek-worthy not to rekindle my childhood love of the series. My mind's been running slow on some of my other fics, so I figured, hey, I'll work on this plot bunny and see if I can get anything out of it. Besides all that, I love Donnie to death. Inspired by a random line in my other comic book obsession, Yoshihiro Togashi's _Hunter X Hunter_.

Set in the 2003 animated world, though some years after the main storyline. "Fast Forward" is completely discredited because, quite simply, I don't like it. Prologue takes place several years before the real story actually picks up, so it may seem a little untimely, but that's why it's a Prologue instead of "Chapter One". (Er...don't ask, that the technial grammar nazi talking...)

_**Disclaimer: **I don't own anything involved with the original production of TMNT. I just like the characters…_

**Underground**

**Prologue: Ashes to Ashes**

Leatherhead found Donatello right where he thought that he would.

It was pouring down rain at the moment, dampening the already dark colors of the tree-lined clearing until they ran together into shadowy walls of moss and wood. The earth beneath them was black with the density of its own mud, bleeding through the sparse patches of dead grass that had been left unattended for years. The sky was heavily masked by the thick storm clouds, almost completely blocking out the already-weak rays of the winter sun and plunging the entire park into darkness.

Donatello was there, in the middle of the clearing, strangely exposed for one who had spent his entire life training to remain hidden at all times. His legs were folded underneath him in a knelling position, sinking up to his knees into the moist earth, which also stained his both of his arms all the way to the elbows. He hadn't looked up when the alligator had entered, even though Leather head knew quite well that the observant ninja must have heard him coming a mile away. His brown eyes were hazy and unfocused, looking at but not quite seeing the four engraved stones that were set into the earth before him.

For a moment, Leatherhead could only think about how young he looked now. If he hadn't known the turtle for so long, he would have never guess that he was now well into his twenties - the expression on his face was that of a lost child.

"Donatello…"

The turtle looked up at him, and his eyes were red, but the expression on his face was carefully blank. "Oh. Hi, Leatherhead."

The alligator sighed, reaching into the fold of the trench coat he wore to pull out a relatively dry windbreaker, which he set over his friend's shoulders. "Mrs. O'Neil-Jones was concerned. She asked me to look for you."

"I haven't been gone that long."

"It has been three hours, Donatello."

"Has it?" The emotionless voice chuckled just a bit, a laugh without humor. "I hadn't noticed. Sorry you had to go to so much trouble."

Leatherhead said nothing. Not expecting an answer, Donatello his eyes back to the four stones that rested in this clearing. The four graves.

One was old, going on a decade in the upcoming year, the final resting place of a beloved teacher and father.

One was not much younger, close beside the master's right-hand side, the small orange urn deep below it containing ashes of one who would never laugh again.

One had no urn, no mound and no trinkets. It was simply a memorial to a brother who had disappeared so completely even his body couldn't be found.

One was fresh. Donatello had dug it himself this morning, before the rain began.

Leatherhead took in each one in detail, from the differences in their simple carvings to the small mounds indicating the shape of their burial urns. He placed a supportive hand on his old friend's shoulder, careful that he did not bring it down with too much force. "What will you do now?"

A three-fingered hand moved to rest atop Leatherhead's much large claw, leaving mud on one of the knuckles, though neither really cared. "Do?" the turtle whispered. "What can I do? I don't exactly have a choice."

"There is always a choice, Donatello."

Again, the turtle looked up at his friend, though this time it was in confusion.

"You could choose to give into your inner pain and end it all now," Leatherhead reasoned simply, not looking at the other mutant. "Your family's code of honor would easily allow for that route. Or you could choose to seek out the ones who have left you in such a state, to take revenge for your family and bring further honor to your clan. You could choose to abandon everything and retreat into a life of solitude, to live the rest of your life with nothing but your memories and meditation. You could choose to simply fade away forever.

"You could choose to do any of these things, Donatello," the alligator turn just a bit and smiled down at his fellow mutant. "But as an old friend, I must say that they would all be a severe deviation from your true character."

The turtle's expression remained blank, almost clueless. Then a light smile spread onto his face, not exactly happy, but batter than he had been before. "Yeah. You're right. Thanks."

Leatherhead reflected the expression back to him, though it was much longer and was lined with quite a bit more teeth. "You're welcome. Shall we return now, before either of us manage to contract some sort of illness from this awful damp weather?"

Donatello found himself laughing despite himself, accepting his friend's help to stand and begin making their way home. "I thought that alligators loved the water."

"We do. It's the cold that we do not like."

"Speaking of which," Donatello let a small, sad kind of smile slide onto his face as he lifted the trap door concealed beneath a large, smooth rock. "How is that kid doing? The little gator you picked up in Florida."

Leatherhead smiled a bit at the thought. "He is adapting quite nicely. I think he will do well here."

"That's good, at least. Have you decided what to call him yet?"

"I thought that 'Tanner' would be appropriate."

"Good name," the turtle agreed, stepping down onto the ladder. He braced his bare feet against the outside of the metal frame, pausing a moment to look once more at the graves. "…I miss them."

Leatherhead nodded sadly. "I know that you do, my friend. We all do."

Another light sigh escaped the purple-masked turtle, but he pushed a small smile onto his face as he tried to remember the good times. "See you in the Lair."

Then he let go of his brace and slide into the darkness.

_**TBC…**_

Yeah, I know, weird way to start a fic, but what can I say? It's the prologue. More coming soon. Leave a review, please. This is my first shot at a TMNT fic and I'd like to know what kind of job I'm doing.


	2. The Lair

Because of the nature of this fic, and the fact that I've never really been fond of the comic book standby "I'm dead, but I got better," I've had the necessity of creating new characters to fill in the storyline gaps. I normally detest stories which hinge on "Original Characters," but this story demands it, so I conjured up Tanner, Cameo and Vox in desperate attempts not to create Mary Sue or Self Insertions. You decide whether or not I was successful.

Oh, and Vox has a bad mouth. Just to warn you. Raphael fans should be fine.

This chapter begins roughly 20 years after the prologue.

_**Disclaimer: **I don't own anything to do with TMNT or its characters, properties, locations or, well anything. However, the random teenager named Vox, the mutated alligator Tanner, Cameo Jones, the concept of The Lair and its citizens in general belong to me, so don't touch 'em with asking first, okie-dokie?_

**Underground**

**Chapter One: The Lair**

"Vox, you idiot! What the hell do you think you're doing?"

The teen paused, glancing down from his place half-way up the exceptionally tall chain link fence. He himself was not a particularly tall young man - in fact, if anything, he was rather short, though he had broad shoulders and long limbs, which gave him a relatively sturdy build. His face was a ruddy color, stained with dirt, and bore several scratches that indicated a rough kind of life. His hair, falling just past his shoulders in messy tangles, was black, speckled with streaks that had once been white, but were so covered in dirt that they now seemed to be grey. A single strip of red cloth held his bangs out of his pale, absinthian green eyes.

He gripped the chains of the fence in one purple-gloved hand, releasing his hold with the other hand to swing around, looking down on the two boys who had followed him here. "What's it look like? I'm goin' over!"

"You're crazy!" Ray exclaimed, his brown eyes widening sharply behind dirty blonde bangs. "Why the hell would you want to go in there? It's dangerous!"

Vox lifted a thin eyebrow and glanced at his destination. True, the Central Dump was not exactly the most welcoming place in the world - it was a square mile of pure junk, a depository for anything that people didn't want, and the smell was enough to drive away most living creatures for another three blocks when the wind blew the wrong way. But he was used to that. He was a Junker - too young to be well known, but good enough to survive. Raiding dumps for spare parts and gizmos to fix up wasn't going to get him into the lap of luxury, but living on the streets didn't give a guy a lot of options.

The Central Lot was the only dump in the city that he'd never been to - in fact, he'd never heard of _anyone_ being there. There were all the usual not-so-tough guy excuses, of course: The fences were too tall for most people to climb, they were ringed with barbed wire and there was literally no entrance or gap anywhere along it; it was too much trouble to break in for something you could find somewhere else, and there was bound to be better stuff in the newer dumps anyway. But deep down, everyone knew that what really kept everyone away were the rumors.

Rumors that Vox didn't believe.

"C'mon guys," he rolled his eyes. "Don't tell me you're scared of that dumb myth."

"It ain't a myth, Voxie," Ryan muttered in a solemn manner, his freckles standing out like pockmarks even through the scraggily red scruff of his barely-pubescent beard. "Ah heard tell that there ain't nobody who went inta that place that ever be comin' out again. Yeh go in der and them mutants'll eat'cha alive."

Again, Vox rolled his eyes and adjusted the brown duffle bag slung over his shoulders. "Fer Chris' sakes. Don't tell me yeh dopes actually believe in _mutants_."

"Well, duh!" Ray exclaimed. "Only a dope wouldn't believe in 'em. They were all over the news forty years ago! They nearly destroyed the city!"

"And how would you know?" Vox retorted. "Were you around forty years ago?"

The other two glanced at each other uncertainly, making noises that sounded more like tuning engines than choruses of agreement. Vox shook his head, clicking his tongue against his teeth in disgust. "I didn't think so."

He scrambled up the last few feet of the fence, finally reaching the barbed wire. It wasn't that big of a deal - any Junker who'd been on the circuit for more than a few years knew how to deal with the stuff, in whatever way they could. Vox grasped the wire in his black-gloved hands, pushing it down against the wire, and flipped himself over the top. His body was protected by the heavy blue jacket, double-layered with a long sleeved red t-shirt, while a pair of thick brown workpants protected his legs.

Once past the barbed wire, he simply let go and dropped to the other side. Years of balance and sturdy black tennis shoes helped to control his landing. He grinned at Ray and Ryan through the links of the chain. "Well? You guys comin'?"

The two glanced at each other, but didn't say a thing or move from the spot.

Vox rolled his eyes again. _Newbies…_

"Fine, suit yourselves," he shrugged once, then disappeared into the piles of junk, leaving his companions behind.

He hadn't needed to go in very far before he realized that he'd definitely hit the jackpot. The first pile that he came to shown in the fading sunlight, the soiled metal components that it was made of flashing and dancing like a stain glass window. It towered at least three or four feet above his head, and his sharp eyes could pick out some key parts - parts that the auto body shops would pay hundreds for even with the standard second-hand discount.

The next pile was even more promising - it contained enough discarded hard drives, microprocessors and motherboards to keep the computer repair shop supplied for years, a haul that would let him live in comfort for nearly as long.

Vox shaded his eyes with his hand, preventing the sunlight from blocking his vision, and gazed over the endless piles and piles, a satisfied grin spreading slowly over the length of his face. All this stuff…all these _prizes_…and nobody had ever touched any of them, all because of a bunch of stupid rumors.

"Mutants," Vox muttered to himself, digging into the computer parts like a gleeful kid at Christmas. "Feh. What mutants? I don't see any mutants around here, do you?"

Naturally, no one answered him, but after four years alone on the streets it wasn't that strange to be talking to himself. He knew others, older guys, some in their teens, others getting in their middle ages, who were far worse - completely losing touch with the world until they starved to death from their own insanity, or wallowing so totally in their own misery that they stumbled into their own deaths without even meaning to. All things considered, he considered himself a pretty normal case.

Well, better than normal, actually. Smarter than normal. After all, _he_ wasn't scared by the rumors.

Another smirk slid across his face at that thought, partially because of the almost-pristine motherboard he'd just found. The old rumors…he had to wonder how they'd survived for this long. They were ridiculous, really. Mutants, living in the Central Lot? It could never happen. And the idea that they caught and ate human trespassers was, similarly, impossible.

After all, there was no such thing as mutants.

He picked up a particularly impressive microprocessor, holding it up to the sun as he straightened and began to make his away around the pile. Its iridescent core glimmered at him like a dark rainbow, reflecting back the soft orange and red hues of the setting sun behind him.

"Totally wicked," he muttered to himself, already plotting his great sale. "Not top-of-the-line, of course, but damn close. A little repair on this cracks, adjust the rotator and…"

At that moment, without looking, he suddenly ran into something big, rough and firm, which towered above him but gave way just enough that he could tell it was a living creature and not a brick wall. The force of the collision knocked him flat on his back, and the precious component flew out of his hand to shatter on the hard ground.

"Oh dear," a voice said above him, relatively deep and with the smallest bit of a southern accent, as a huge hand appeared to offer him help up. "I'm sorry. I must not have been watching where I was going."

Vox grunted as he shoved up onto his elbows, reaching for the hand. "Ugh. No prob. My fault as much as…"

He touched the other hand and stopped. Even through the gloves, he could feel that the skin was very rough, dry and scaly in a way that even the worst human skin could never be. What he gripped now was not actually the hand itself, but one of three huge fingers - big enough around that he could barely wrap his hand around it, at least six inches long and topped with a large claw. The actual hand was further down, and at least twice the size of Vox's own, attached the a thick, strong arm.

Vox snapped his head up, finding himself face to big ugly face with a huge, walking, talking half-human alligator thing, which towered so far over him that Vox was consumed by his shadow. His eyes were a strange blackish color, most definitely not human, and the expression that they gave him was strangely confused. His mouth was slightly open, probably in shock, which, unfortunately, gave Vox a full view of his rows and rows of sharp, menacing teeth. His skin was a kind of muddy green-grey, and he was wearing a long brown duster jacket, a heavy black belt armed with many helpful little pockets just underneath.

Vox stared at the gator a moment, open-mouthed, then let out a high-pitched scream and scrambled backwards across the dirty concrete. The alligator was startled, snapping his hand back, but barely had time to register what had happened before Vox took off in the opposite direction. "Ah…wait a moment, please!"

But Vox wasn't listening - he was running, at top speed, not even pausing to think that he was heading deeper into the Lot rather than out of it.

Vox was not particularly smart, book-wise. He could barely read, and the idea of studying or going to school just seemed impractical when a day spent in a classroom meant a day without a decent meal. But he was smart enough to know one thing: _That_ was not a normal alligator.

_That_ was a mutant.

So much for being above-average.

The gator's shouts soon faded into the background, and Vox had to smirk. If he could say nothing else for himself and his life on the streets, at least he had the fastest feet in New York. His speed had saved his hide dozens of times, especially when he'd run astray of the Neo-Dragons, and it was bound to save him this time, too…

He twisted back for one last look at the amazing, unbelievable creature, and almost instantly lost his footing. He stumbled, regained his balance for a split second, then fell forward, into nothing. Well, it wasn't really nothing - it was a drainage ditch, falling into nothingness, which probably led straight into the sewers but was deep enough that the landing wouldn't have mattered. Vox flailed in the air, all of his limbs floundering as one, and managed to grab hold of a thin chain, attached to a work crane that reached into the depths of the pit. He clung to the lifeline with both hands, his arms pulled up over his head awkwardly.

"Auw, hell," he swore under his breath, his shoulders being wrenched in opposite directions as he swung. He twisted, looking for the edges of the crevice, but it was too far in all directions to even think about swinging. "Hell."

He could see the endless darkness past the dangling black tennis shoes at the end of his legs. A piece of metal twine fell out of his jacket pocket, tumbling down and down, disappearing from sight within moments as it kept falling. "Hell."

The gloves were making it hard for him to grip the chain, and with a jerk he suddenly dropped five inches down its length, scrambling to get a grip again. "Hell hell hell hell fucking _hell_."

At that moment, just as his last two fingers were beginning to loose their grip, the crane swung around and tossed the chain with a whip-like crack. Vox lost his grip and fell five feet to the hard ground, where he lay face-first, gripping his stomach in pain and trying hard not to wretch.

He coughed several times from the bottom of his chest, a gurgling sound bubbling out of his throat. Slowly, Vox pulled himself to his hands and knees, one hand wrapped around his stomach. "Ugh…I'm gonna…be sick."

"Luckier than you woulda been, pal."

Vox looked up at the alligator's voice, but before he could locate the mutant a long, thin blade had been pressed threateningly against the taunt skin of his throat. It was not a long blade, perhaps about the length of a decent-sized machete, but forged like a short sword and attached to a decorative black pole to make a strange kind of spear. A braided silver-and-white tassel dangled just before the blade, and looking at it made Vox's eyes cross.

A light growl, higher pitched than the voice before it, accompanied the sudden attack. "Don't move, Topsider."

Vox uncrossed his eyes and trialed them up the long pole. He came first to a pair of hands - thin, strong and pale with black-painted nails - and then the arms attached - thin from lack of decent nutrition, but effectively hidden by the thick, wine-red cloth of a heavy sweatshirt. There was a bracelet on one wrist, alternating with chunky black and white beads. A bit further up, he discovered the body of the one threatening him - obviously female and built relatively small, so she must have been around his age. She was rather skinny, but there were a few layers of muscle on her body that indicated a life of physical training. Beneath the heavy sweatshirt, he could see faded black jeans that appeared to be grey, broken and patched in various places by red-purple cloth, and a pair of dark grey shoes that looked almost homemade. Finally getting to her head, he found that she had blonde hair, which was a little more than shoulder length, held out of vicious-looking blue eyes by another strip of red-purple cloth, this one with a small charm in the shape of a yin-yang dangling from it. The expression on her face now was vicious, her already thin lips pursed together in a disgusted snarl, and her little nose wrinkling up as though she smelt something bad.

Vox's mouth dropped open so that his jaw sat atop the dull side of the spear's blade. "Whoa."

"I said quiet, Topsider." The girl hissed, adjusting her grip so that the boy's head was pushed up even further. "You even _think_ about moving and I'll skin you like a sewer snake."

Vox went rigid and his mouth clamped shut. The girl's scowl deepened, and she looked just about ready to thrust the blade into his neck when the same large, leathery hand from before appeared, pulling the spear away.

"Cameo," the gator chastised, lifting the weapon out of the girl's grasp. "This is _not_ the way to handle things."

The girl reluctantly let go of her spear, gripping her hands into fists instead to glare at the mutant, like a child rebelling against their parent. "He's an intruder! A trespasser! A thief!"

The alligator sighed, looking somewhat distressed. "He's just a little…misplaced. Like we all are. It's not that much of a threat."

"_All_ outsiders are a threat!"

Vox gaped at the scene in front of him, not trying to get off the ground. A mutant alligator and a crazy girl with a spear were arguing whether or not to kill him because he'd been wandering through a junkyard.

…Either this was a really bad dream, or he'd fallen off the fence in mid-climb and the resulting concussion had given him one hell of a hallucination.

As he came out of his thoughts, the argument seemed to be winding down, as the two warring parties were now staring at each other evenly. The girl huffed, stealing back her spear and using it to lean against the ground with a scowl. "So, what do _you_ suggest we do, Tanner?"

"Simply," The alligator sighed, placing one huge hand on his own temples. "We take him downstairs and let Donatello figure out what to do. He knows better than we do when it comes to the Topside. He knows how to deal with the people who live outside."

It occurred to Vox that this might be a good time to slip away, while his guards were distracted with their own issues. He slid back into a crouch, tucking his knees underneath him, and used his arms to guide his body into a slow, subtle turn.

The girl's scowl turned into a pout, relenting to the other's logic. "Okay…Yeah, I guess you're right."

"Good," the gator grinned, showing all of his viciously sharp teeth, all the way to the back. "I knew that you'd see it my way."

Vox lifted himself up onto the balls of his feet, bracing his hands against the ground, ready to take off like an Olympic racer. He took a split second to prepare himself, then shot away, only to be seized roughly by the back of his collar and jerked back to the ground.

"Nice try, Topsider," the girl 'Cameo' hissed down at him. "But you're not going anywhere."

Vox turned back and gave her an awkward grin. Who knew, maybe she was a mutant, too. "Auw, c'mon. I really don't taste too good. Can't I just appeal to your better nature, huh?"

Both of the strangers stared at him openly for a second. The alligator then burst out laughing - a nice, pleasant sound that rang and shook the objects around him like a lion's roar - and the girl turned bright pink, hiding half of her face in one hand.

"There's no need to be worrying about that, friend," the gator said brightly, wrapping a single huge arm around Vox's shoulder and sweeping him back to his feet. "No one downstairs has ever eaten a human in their lives."

"R-Really…" Vox murmured uncertainly, his eyes shifting around him for a way out, but with the gator effectively covering three of his four sides and the girl blocking the escape route from the front, there was no chance for escape.

"Besides," Tanner grinned down at him, showing every single one of the strange, sharp teeth. "People make for lousy eating even when you're desperate for it. Trust me, I should know."

Vox gulped in his dry throat and became a little more uneasy with the huge arm surrounding him.

Cameo was leading the way, very confidentially, as though she'd walked the same steps for her entire life. She approached the drainage ditch - the one that Vox had nearly fallen into! - and stepped down onto something like a metal step, concealed just below the edge of the hole. A few more steps and it was revealed to be a ladder, which she climbed down step by step, not watching where she was going, rather focusing her cold blue eyes on the boy.

Tanner the alligator smiled again, waving his free arm at the ladder. "After you."

Vox gulped again but, seeing no other alternative, climbed down the ladder.

After a long while, the climb lead them exactly where Vox thought it would - the sewer tunnels. His nose twitched and wrinkled just the slightest bit at the smell, but adapted quickly. Cameo waited for him at the base, gripping her spear like a guard until Tanner had climbed down as well, ready to shish-ka-bob Vox if he even thought about running. But once the alligator had made it down, he shooed her off again and resumed his position at Vox's side as they set off.

Now that they were here, the journey did not seem long, but it was complicated. Vox's eyes were still getting used to the darkness as they made their way long the twists and turns of the sewer tunnels. It occurred to him that, even if he could make a break for it now, there would be no chance of him remembering his way back, thus realizing why the gator no longer bothered to keep one arm draped over him like a yoke.

From around the corner, where she had moved on ahead, Cameo's voice made a blank, unemotional announcement: "We're here."

As they stepped around, a blast of white light suddenly struck Vox right in the retina. The sudden light in the darkness left him blind for a few split seconds of pain. But once his vision had cleared, Vox's mouth dropped open in surprise. "Holy shit…"

It was a city.

Well, not actually a city, but pretty damn close.

A huge cavity had spread out through the edges of the earth, not as big as the Central Lot, but close. It was not perfectly circular, seeming to have been chipped away over a great deal of time, but it was hard to tell exactly what shape that left it, as every inch of the floor, twenty feet below them, was covered in squat box-buildings as varying as the trash in any junkyard of the city. They seemed to be organized in a hodgepodge of ways - one stood all on its own, with noting around it for twenty meters, while down the way, six others were pressed together so tightly that they all shared a wall. And in the cracks (since you really couldn't call them streets) between these buildings, there traveled dozens of mutants - fish, flies, cockroaches, frogs, some unidentifiable reptiles, furry creatures and the occasional almost-human person, all wandering free and greeting each other brightly, as if they hadn't a care in the world.

Vox's lower jaw dropped to his chest, and he repeated his statement. "Holy freakin' shit."

Tanner grinned proudly, clapping the boy on the shoulder with one huge hand, nearly knocking him right off their perch. The gator took a deep breath of the strangely sweat, though slightly stuffy, air and let out a contented sigh that echoed across the tiny town.

"Welcome to the Lair."

_**TBC…**_

Vox talks like a lot of the guys in my high school class…It's interesting to play with, because I don't talk like that.

Cameo's weapon is a _naginata, _a Japanese spear that is traditionally used by women. Why she has that weapon specifically will be revealed later on. And yes, her name is pronounced exactly the same way as a cameo on a TV show…I just found it at the baby names site and thought it suited her, given who her mom is an all. You wanna know who? Just guess. Looking up the meaning of her name might help, too.


	3. Broken Clocks and Tea

Cricket…cricket…wow, it's quiet in here.

_**Disclaimer: **I don't own anything to do with TMNT or its characters, properties, locations or, well anything. However, the random teenager named Vox, the mutated alligator Tanner, Cameo Jones, the concept of The Lair and its citizens in general belong to me, so don't touch 'em with asking first, okie-dokie?_

**Underground**

**Chapter Two: Broken Clocks and Tea**

Donatello frowned a bit, focusing all of his concentration on the tissue sample under his microscope. Or at least, he would have liked to be concentrating on the sample, but the mismatched and slightly awkward lenses of his second-hand tool were making that difficult. He adjusted them yet again and leaned back, rubbing his temples.

Leatherhead looked up from his workbench on the opposite side of the lab and chuckled slightly. "Having difficulties, my friend?"

"Constantly," Don sighed, sitting up again to examine the sample once more. "At least Ms. Noriko's cells are looking fine. All of the reactions seem normal, for the A-six mutagen at least."

Leatherhead nodded and recorded the information in his records. It was one of their more important duties, not only as the Lair's primary caretakers, but as the only two of the residents well-versed enough in mutant tissue to properly study the progressing effects. With so many mutants in a contained area, it was important for them to keep track of the various mutagens that had caused them all to be in the first place. If one had some how mixed with another, or came into contact with an already mutated creature, it could cause secondary mutations or effects that would put the entire Lair at risk. And so, as a precaution, they went through a decent sampling of the Lair's population every three months, just to be sure.

Generally, like this time, it took them about a two months to go through them all.

"That does it for the A-group this go around," Don sighed, leaning back in his chair to look at his alligator friend. "Care to move on to the B's and C's or just take a break for now?"

Leatherhead grinned, showing all of his sharp teeth. "I believe that a small rest would be quite fortuitous."

Donatello grinned, looking tired. "I agree."

"Ow! Hey, watch it!"

The turtle jerked automatically, his old training kicking in at the unfamiliar voice that echoed through the closed door. He reached for the wooden bo that rested beside his workbench, but relaxed when another, more familiar sound followed it: "Quiet, Topsider! I told you not to touch anything!"

"But I was just looking…"

"Look with your eyes, not with your hands, thief!"

There was a swiping noise and a crash, followed by a feminine shriek. "Oh, _now_ look what you've done!"

"What _I've_ done? You're the one who broke it!"

Donatello straightened calmly, quirking a brow at Leatherhead inquisitively. The alligator was just returning the gesture when they heard a gentle, hollow knock from large, scaly knuckles. "Come in."

The door cracked open, pushed the rest of the way by the head of a relatively small, just barely adult mutant alligator with dusty grey-brown skin and big brown eyes. He glanced into the room, then met Leatherhead's eye and glanced at the ground. "Um…Hi, Pops. Donatello."

"Tanner," Leatherhead smiled a bit seeing the boy he'd been raising the last 20 years, but his mind quickly switched to the noise once more. "What's going on out there?"

"Well, you see…" Tanner shifted from one foot to the other anxiously. "See, Cam…"

Don sighed and shook his head. "Who did she attack this time?"

"She didn't actually…"

"I thought that we made it clear the _last _time," the turtle scowled, pushing away form his desk in annoyance. "Running outsiders off is one thing, but trying to get them killed is another. Doesn't she know that anybody could _see_ what's going on down here if they looked hard enough?"

"It's really not Cam's fault!" Tanner insisted, though his enthusiasm disappeared when the older mutants looked to him again. "I…I was looking for some new egg cartons, those plastic ones, to put the seeds in? And I wasn't looking where I was going and ran into this kid…he's some kind of Junker, I think. I didn't see him, but he saw me and freaked out. He ran, like he was going to go get someone, and Cam just…well, we panicked."

Donatello sighed. He couldn't exactly blame them for that… "So what did you do with him?"

"Well, we…"

_CRASH! _

"Why you miserable little…!"

"I _didn't_ do it! I didn't do anything!"

Tanner winced again. "We…couldn't agree, so we just brought him…back here…to see if you knew what to do."

Once again, Donatello glanced at Leatherhead, who shrugged even as he attempted to hide the rather amused expression on his face. There was nothing amusing about this. If this new boy was friendly, there would be little problem…perhaps he could even become a much-needed contact to the outside world, as Cameo's grandparents were. But if he was hostile - which was far more likely - he would instantly become a danger to the Lair and everyone in it.

Which meant that there was only one thing that they could do…

"All right then, Tanner." Don sighed, slipping his bow back into place over his shell. "Send him in."

**( - ) ( - ) ( - )**

Cameo Jones stood over the outsider, the sharp blade of her naginata pointed directly at his chest. Her teeth were gritted together fiercely, her blue eyes set in a stern glare. She was not going to fall for his stupid grin or his slipshod attitude. She knew better than to trust people like him. Dirty, selfish, money-grubbing topsiders…

"Dude, girl, just calm down," he was saying, raising his hands in a useless defense, almost as if he was trying to surrender. "I'm not gonna touch anything or go anywhere, I swear. I just wanna know where this place came from, and who exactly this Dona…"

Cam pushed the blade a little closer, effectively shutting him up, though she controlled herself just enough to keep from cutting him. She took a deep breath through her gritted teeth, trying to regulate her breathing and calm her mind.

She couldn't let him aggravate her - she was better than that. Her _family _was better than that. Her mother and grandmother had both been trained by the original ninja master of their clan, Master Splinter, and _she_ had been trained by both of them _and_ Donatello. Through them and their teachings, she had a long line of ninjas to make proud, and she wasn't going to waste it all on a pompous little piece of junk like…

"Cameo, what exactly are you doing?"

The girl let out a sharp "Eep!" of surprise, her weapon dropping sharply. Vox, with his quick reflexes, rolled out of the way at the last minute, so the total damage was really just a large slash in the wooden floor, where the blade had sunk in less than two centimeters.

Cam winced at the sight, and at the fact that it was her slip of the hand that had caused it. Hesitantly, she slipped her weapon back into place and turned back to the mutant turtle that had addressed her. "I…I was just…"

"Giving into a frustrating impulse that resulted in the destruction of two pieces of fine china and an old clock," Donatello finished for her, taking in the half-destroyed little room. "You should know better than that."

Another wince. Cameo lowered her head in shame. "I…I know. I'm sorry."

Again, the turtle sighed lightly. Then he flicked one of this three large fingers at the door which lead to the building's main hall. "To the dojo with you, then. Fifty flips and five laps, then come back."

"Yessir!" The girl shot up right, almost at a kind of attention, and shot out the door.

The mutant turtle clicked his tongue and shook his head as she went. Behind him, the large of the two alligators chuckled in amusement at the sight, while his son watched somewhat awkwardly. Vox eyed the group from his place on the ground, not sure if he wanted to get up. Getting up could get him noticed, and being noticed could get him eaten….

But that idea was scrapped quickly as the turtle's brown eyes shifted to him. Vox stiffened, automatically reaching for something, anything that could be used as a weapon.

"Nice reflexes," the turtle noted, reach down to catch his wrist in one swift motion. "But you won't be needing them now. Just relax."

Vox couldn't help it - he laughed. "Relax? Now? Sure."

"Well, if you want to be that way." The turtle shrugged, making his way over to the bench where Vox had carefully placed the broken clock, which actually had been his fault. Donatello lifted one brow curiously to find that the cogs that had fallen out were laid flat and relatively neat, given the circumstances. "Interesting. Are you familiar with kind of clock?"

"It's clock," Vox shrugged. "What's there to know?"

"Enough," Donatello smiled. "Not a lot of people would keep track of its broken parts so well unless they knew how to put it back together again."

Another shrug. "I'm a Junker. Finding the parts for the broken crap is what I do. Somebody else puts 'em together."

"I see." Donatello put the cogs back onto the table and turned back to the boy. "What is your name?"

The Junker shifted a bit, moving into a slightly more dignified 'Indian style' position before he answered. "Vox. I don't got a last name."

"Most Junkers don't."

Absinthian green eyes watched the turtle wearily. "What about you?"

"My name is Hamato Donatello," the mutant bowed automatically, years of training and habit kicking in. "Most just call me Donatello.

"…'Kay."

Donatello motioned to the two crocodilian mutants standing in the doorway to his lab. "This is my associate, Leatherhead…"

The larger alligator nodded his head politely. "How do you do?"

"…and I believe you've already met his son, Tanner."

"That's your dad?" Vox blurted. Tanner's olive-green skin turned slightly red with a kind of blush, and he nodded awkwardly.

Another grin. The boy was starting to relax a bit. "It's certainly nice to see that you two are getting along, at least."

Vox's cheeks colored a bit darker than before, making him look a bit like a bruised tomato. He turned his head to the side with a scowl, gripping and ungripping his gloved hands. "So, what's the deal? You guys, like, in charge of this freaky place?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes." Donatello nodded toward the other mutants again. "Leatherhead and I make sure that everything works the way that it was meant to work, both with the residents and the utilities. We do sort of keep things in order."

Vox turned his eyes without turning his head. "So…are you gonna eat me?"

Leatherhead laughed at that, and the sound was strange enough to anyone who wasn't familiar with him that Vox nearly crack his skull in an attempt to get away. It took a moment to calm the frazzled boy down, during which time Cameo reappeared, looking sweaty and disgusted, and Tanner managed to retrieve a pot of tea and several cups to it serve in.

"To answer your question," Donatello continued as soon as the tea was poured and everyone had just about calmed into a reasonably controllable state, "no, we are not going to eat you. Despite appearances, mutants do not eat people. That rumor got started when someone came across a young mutant finishing off some friend chicken, and the remaining bones were misinterpreted."

"Ah…" Vox's hands shook a little bit around his cup, uncertain. He was eyeing Cameo across the table as though she was rabid wolf, which she responded by glaring at him in a very territorial manner.

Vox yanked his eyes away from her and turned back to the gathered mutants, feeling vaguely like the new kid in kindergarten that all the kids were only paying attention to because the teacher told them to. He hated that feeling, so he tried to draw on what Tanner had told him on the way in…something to make him seem smarter than he was. "So…This place. It's, like, a place for mutants, right? A place to hide?"

"Indeed," Leatherhead nodded, sounding much more like a cordial gentleman and less like the blood-thirsty animal his laugh had made him out to be. "The Lair is a community for those who have nowhere else to go. It is a refuge for those that cannot exist in a normal society…mutants more so than any other." He glanced over at the turtle with a small, knowing smile. "Donatello's…family…established this place several years ago, in a similar manner to their own home."

"…Family, huh?"

Vox glanced down at his own reflection in the tea, completely missing the thoughtful expression that passed over Donatello's face. "Sure seems…cozy."

"Yes," Leatherhead sighed. "Cozy and safe, as it has been for years. Which now leads us to the issue of your fate, young man."

Vox nearly spat out his tea. He quickly set the cup down before he could drop or break it, holding his hands up in a symbol of surrender. "I won't tell anybody about this place, really. You don't have to worry about me."

Cameo scoffed. "Of course we don't."

Vox glared at her in distaste. "What good would it do me to sell out a town full of mutants livin' in the sewers? For that matter, who would believe me even if I wanted to?"

Cameo stood sharply, knocking over her chair and slamming one hand down on the table. "There is no way in hell that we can trust this guy!"

"You don't know that!"

Donatello coughed once in order to get their attention, quickly silencing the two teens. "The fact is that we _don't_ know whether you can be trusted. Not really. And we can't afford to take that risk. So, there's only one thing that we can do."

The bottom dropped out of Vox's stomach, anticipating the proclamation of his own death sentence. Expecting the same thing, Cameo grinned, reaching for her weapon eagerly. Leatherhead and Tanner glanced at each other, knowing that Donatello _wouldn't _say what they thought he was going to say, but not being able to help thinking: what if he did…?

"You'll have to stay here, under surveillance, until we're absolutely sure that it's safe for us to let you return to the surface."

Both Tanner and Vox sighed in relief. Leatherhead grinned. Cameo, on the other hand, was just shocked. "But…But Donatello, there's no place for him! Who's going to be able to watch him for all that time, huh?"

A mischievous kind of grin slipped across Donatello's face as the plan began working itself out in his mind. "Well, Cameo, since you're so eager to keep him in line, I think that you should do it."

This time, Vox did drop his cup. "You gotta be kidding!"

"Indeed not."

Cameo looked horrified as well. "But Donatello…!"

"No 'buts,'" Donatello sighed, looking over at the other mutants. "I think that it's for the best. Don't you agree, Leatherhead?"

"Indeed," the alligator smiled slightly. "I think that it's an excellent idea."

And that, as some people would say, was all there was to it.

_**TBC…**_

Uh…yeah. My chapter endings continue to suck as much as they do in the Digimon section. But at least I got Donnie and Leatherhead back into their proper roles. The Lair and how it came about, along with exactly what happened to the rest of the Hamato clan, will be explained in about two chapters, so just hold on for a little bit.

As a random bit, Tanner is the Lair's primary gardener. He keeps track of the greenhouses that provide them with fresh oxygen and food. And he's a mutant alligator. It's just something I felt like throwing it.


End file.
